Let’s be real. The writing world is more divided than a Thanksgiving dinner with politics on the table. On one side, you’ve got the purists clutching their fountain pens and wailing, “AI is the death of creativity!” On the other, you’ve got the tech-savvy crew waving their ChatGPT outlines like victory flags and chanting, “Adapt or die!” And then there’s the rest of us, caught in the middle, just trying to figure out if AI is here to help, hurt, or haunt us.
Spoiler: It’s here to help. Let me explain.
To show you what’s possible, let’s talk about two writers. Meet Traditional Terry and AI-Assisted Annie. Terry is old school to the bone. She spends hours agonizing over every little detail of her novel. Want to know how long it takes her to outline a book? Somewhere between 30 and 50 hours, depending on how many existential crises she has along the way. Terry has to make decisions like “Should I write in first person or third?” or “Is present tense too pretentious?” turn into week-long rabbit holes. By the time she finishes her debut novel it's six years later, she’s exhausted, and her target market readership has moved on. Terry is half-convinced she should’ve stuck with watercolor painting (cue the world’s tiniest violin and a montage of regret).
Then there’s Annie. Annie’s not messing around. She’s got ChatGPT open, but here’s the thing, she’s not just tossing vague questions at it and hoping for the best. Annie knows the magic lies in the prompts. She’s using carefully crafted instructions to get the AI to deliver exactly what she needs. Want an outline for a romantic thriller? Sure, but it’s not as simple as saying “Give me an outline.” Annie uses a structured system of prompts to generate a roadmap that fits her creative vision.
When Annie’s on the fence about POV or tense, she doesn’t waste weeks experimenting. Folks, she’s got better things to do, like Googling how to describe the smell of rain without sounding like a weather app (I kid of course, but you get the gist). Instead, her custom prompts allow her to quickly test how her story feels in first-person versus third, or past tense versus present. She’s able to get tailored samples that help her decide without getting bogged down in “what if” scenarios. What would take Terry months of gnashing her teeth takes Annie an afternoon, thanks to the kind of prompt engineering I teach in my course.
And here’s the kicker, Annie finished her novel in six months. Six months! By outsourcing the technical grunt work to AI, she’s free to focus on the fun stuff: her characters, her dialogue, her big dramatic twists. AI isn’t stealing her creativity; it’s supercharging it.
Meanwhile, poor Terry is still grinding. She’s stuck in the weeds, drowning in self-doubt, and wondering if she’ll ever get to type “The End.” Six years have passed (though she’s aged fifteen thanks to frustration, procrastination, and enough false starts to rival trying to assemble IKEA furniture without the instructions), and while Terry’s manuscript might finally be done, she’s left wondering if it was all worth the blood, sweat, and spiral-bound notebooks. The process has drained her excitement and passion, and she’s half-convinced she should’ve stuck with watercolor painting instead.
Annie? She’s thriving. She’s confident because she’s found a way to tackle the hardest parts of writing without losing her sanity. ChatGPT isn’t just helping her write; it’s helping her finish. And in a world where half-finished drafts are the norm, finishing is everything.
Here’s the truth. Writing is changing. AI isn’t the enemy; it’s the sidekick you didn’t know you needed. Tools like ChatGPT are making the writing process faster, easier, and honestly? Way more fun.
So if you’re ready to stop grinding and start growing, let’s do this. My course, Novel Starter Kit with ChatGPT, is built around The Novelist Studio AI Novel Development Framework, a collection of proprietary prompts and instructions designed to help you outline, structure, and refine your novel with ease. With an emphasis on robust scene and character creation, this framework takes the guesswork out of the process and empowers you to bring your vision to life. Whether you’re starting from scratch or trying to rescue a draft from the “unfinished projects” folder, I’ve got you covered.
Don’t be a Traditional Terry, stuck in an endless loop of analysis paralysis. Be an AI-Assisted Annie, confident, creative, and ready to make your mark. The future of writing is here, and it’s waiting for you to grab it by the keyboard :-)
Your best-seller awaits :-)
